THE CARCASS POSSIBLY 18TH CENTURY, WITH ASSOCIATED LACQUER PANELS

Andrew William Mellon (1855-1937), was an American financier, industrialist, and public official, who with his brother took over his father's banking firm of Thomas Mellon and Sons in 1886. Thomas Mellon, a successful Pittsburgh banker and lawyer, had helped Henry C. Frick to expand his holdings in the coke industry. In 1889, Andrew Mellon led in establishing the Union Trust Company of Pittsburgh-later to become one of the larger financial institutions in the United States. Meanwhile he expanded his holdings in key American industries and held large interests in such companies as the Gulf Oil Company, the American Locomotive Company, the Pittsburgh Coal Company, and in hydroelectric, bridge-building, public-utility, steel, insurance, and traction companies. He resigned as president of the Mellon National Bank in 1921 to become U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and held that cabinet post until 1932 under Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. He later served as U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. He donated his famous art collection to the country in the form of the National Gallery of Art in 1937, as well as funds for the construction of the West Building and an endowment.

Andrew Mellon was survived by his children, Ailsa Mellon Bruce (d. 1969) and her brother Paul Mellon (d. 1999) who continued his artistic patronage. Ailsa Mellon Bruce served as her fathers official hostess when he was Secretary of the Treasury (1921-32) and ambassador to the Court of St. James. In 1926, she married David K. Bruce, whom she divorced in 1945. Mrs. Bruce died in 1969, and Paul Mellon helped establish the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Decorative Arts Galleries at the Carnegie Museum of Art, where he was a benefactor, to house his sister's collection of antique furniture.